He’d been so excited. So sure the System would tell him everything he wanted to know. He hadn’t considered that everything it had told him so far involved a class he either already had or knew existed.

But I didn’t know that Mage existed when it gave me a clue about how to get that class. Although I did mention it by name. I guess that was enough?

The system seemed to have drawn an arbitrary line in the sand. It was willing to divulge class fusions when Milo knew of the specific classes involved, but it outright refused to spit out a list of all potential classes that Runemage could turn into. In short, Milo was at an impasse until he happened to learn of any new classes—or guess them, like he had with Mage.

So now he was eyeing a certain skeleton.

I’m guessing there’s a way to become a Necromancer in this world. Usually there’s a stigma involved, so I’m pretty sure that’s not something I want to pursue even if it is a viable fusion, but getting another class option would be nice.

Still, he was hesitant. He didn’t have any qualms personally; the dead were just clumps of decaying organic matter as far as he was concerned, not materially different from a rotting piece of fruit. What made a person a person disappeared when their brain stopped working. His main concern in messing with the skeletal remains was Backlebutt’s potential reaction.

Fortunately, Milo had absolutely no idea how to go about getting a Necromancer class, so he couldn’t really do anything too nefarious. He supposed he could make up a ritual and chant some nonsense, but he had absolutely no reason to expect that to work.

Instead, he decided he would bury the bones. Maybe he’d get a gravedigger class or something.

The little cave he shared with Backlebutt and the dead man (or woman) was pretty much all rock, but he knew that there was some dirt back in the tunnels that it might be possible to dig a grave out of. It was pretty hard-packed, though. Worst case, he could pile up some stones around the bones and make a little cairn.

He started picking through the pile of bones, doing his best to clean them off a bit before putting them in his emptied Earth backpack. The bones were thoroughly dry and desiccated, but there were lots of flaky, dusty pieces of debris caked onto them, often held together with the last fibrous remnants of clothing the person had worn.

Milo made a happy discovery after lifting up one of the hip bones. Well, happy after his initial revulsion at having uncovered a bunch of wriggling bugs, anyway. Coins! Whoever this was had taken their purse with them into the dungeon.

He poked through the layer of filth underneath the hip bone with the hip bone itself, not wanting to get his hands any dirtier than he had to. He also squashed any bugs that began crawling his way. He didn’t receive any kill notifications—not that he expected to—but he started idly wondering at what point the system decided something was worthy of a level, and that killing it was worthy of experience.

Milo counted the coins when he was pretty sure he’d found all of them. Seventeen. They were so grimy that he had no idea what metal they were made of. He’d clean them off later. For now, he simply stuck them in one of the pockets of his backpack. He was surprised when a message popped up.

-

Congratulations! By looting treasure from someone’s final resting place, you have gained access to the Graverobber class!

-

A whole class devoted to robbing graves? Jesus. Although, I guess the bar there is already set pretty low.

Juggling was a class, after all.

Curious what the system had to say about Graverobbing, he opened up the skill description.

-

Graverobber: “Hey, he’s not using it.”

-Gain skills and knowledge for locating and acquiring valuables buried with the dead. Class fusion available.

-

Milo knew the descriptions for the classes tended to be tongue-in-cheek, but he actually agreed with this one. Why would you bury somebody with valuable stuff? Keep it for the living.

He checked the fusion options, amused to see that one of them was Archaeologist, a fusion with the Miner class. He imagined a Graverobber getting caught red-handed, then innocently protesting they were an aspiring Archaeologist.

The other one was an Explorer fusion, powering up into a Tomb Raider.

Does it come with a pair of pistols and a nice rack?

Chuckling to himself, Milo finished up his slightly macabre activities, managing to get all of the bones into the backpack. It wouldn’t zip all the way shut since the femurs were too long, but it would do for as long as he needed it to. He grabbed his hammer, leaning up against the wall next to Backlebutt, and tossed it in with the bones before shrugging the backpack over his shoulders.

With a glance at Backlebutt, still snoring up a storm, Milo climbed aboard his binder and flew out over the row of zombodiles and the river, making his way to the tunnel entrance. His textbook trailed along behind him. He looked back once to make sure that he wasn’t followed by any of the zombodiles. They seemed content to wait out Backlebutt rather than chase the flying Milo. It made sense; after all, crocodiles were ambush predators, not hunters.

He touched down inside the tunnel, immediately Skimming first for any creatures that might have wandered into the area, then for stones flat enough that they could work as a spade for scooping loose dirt out of a grave. He found no enemies, but he did find a couple of suitable rocks. He chose one, poked his head out into the cavern to make sure the situation there hadn’t changed in the last thirty seconds, then started breaking ground just inside the tunnel with the claw end of his hammer.

Even with stopping every thirty seconds or so to obsessively reassess his surroundings, It didn’t take long for him to dig a big enough hole to hold all of the bones. He was content with a shallow grave, and with the hammer to break up the soil and the rock to scoop it away, he was done digging in just a few minutes.

He dumped the bones out of his backpack and into the little hole he’d created before covering the jumbled human remains with the loose dirt. He tamped it down a bit, then stabbed the spade-rock into the top of it, creating a tiny headstone.

Milo waited expectantly for a system message, but nothing was immediately forthcoming.

Hm. Thought that would work. Maybe…

He spoke aloud. “Here lies…someone. I never knew them in life, but they died doing the same thing I’m trying to do, and that connects us. If there is an afterlife, or a next life, I hope they have found peace there. Ummm….ashes to ashes, dust to dust. That’s a thing, right?”

-

Congratulations! By arranging and respectfully conducting a funeral, you have gained access to the Undertaker class.

-

Nice.

He checked out the new skill.

-

Undertaker: “Do you want flies? Because that’s how you get flies.”

Somebody has to deal with all the corpses lying around; might as well be you.

-Gain skills and knowledge for dealing with the deceased (and their relatives).

-

Not a winner, but that brings me up to 16 total classes now. 9 more to get that fusion point Backlebutt had mentioned.

He put his hammer back in his backpack and returned to the cave.

It was boring in the cave.

He was sure there was some clever System/Skim communication loophole that he should be exploiting, but he just wasn’t in the mood for it. For one, none of the information would likely be useful for at least three more days, and for another he’d just spent hours studying. He would much prefer to be up on his feet moving around for the time being.

Milo looked at the cavern’s exit on the far right wall from where he was sitting. Then he looked at Backlebutt.

He’ll be fine. I just checked the tunnel I came from, and it was fine. The zombodiles can’t get him, and I’ll be scouting ahead, so I’ll see anything coming from that direction.

He nearly talked himself into it—until he considered that Backlebutt had probably told himself something similar when he had abandoned Milo not so long ago. Things had ultimately worked out, but now Backlebutt was in rough shape.

Milo looked at the man’s leg. It was more swollen than it had been. Would he even be able to walk?

And he was bitten by a wild, rotting animal. Those wounds can’t be clean...

Wait a minute. Is he going to turn into a zombie?

He edged away from the snoring man. It hadn’t occurred to him before, but Backlebutt had been bitten by a zombified creature. Considering that this world’s magical system shared similarities with concepts Milo was familiar with from fiction in his world, it definitely stood to reason that there was a chance Backlebutt had been infected with a zombie virus.

But not all zombies are the result of a zombie virus. It’s probably fine.

Probably.

...But maybe Backlebutt could use some alone time for a while. Still, he didn’t feel great about leaving the man without a word. He also didn’t want to wake him up quite yet; it had only been four hours or so since he’d dozed off.

So he made a plan.

Maybe an hour later, after five trips back and forth to the tunnel, he had amassed a large number of rocks ranging in size from fist to cantaloupe, which he piled back where the skeleton in the cave had been.

Feeling a little bad, he nudged Backlebutt with his foot.

Surprisingly—given what he’d slept through so far—Backlebutt responded very quickly to the nudge. The man’s eyes fluttered open, eyes darting side to side briefly before focusing on Milo.

“Hey,” Milo said a little nervously. “It’s not really time to be up yet, but...do you think you can walk? Like, well? Well enough to fight? Because if not, I think we should split up. I don’t think you’re going to be very useful with your leg like it is. I got you rocks, so you can maybe kill the zombodiles while I go ahead and clear the way. I’ll be careful, and I’ll come back for you. Okay? You should probably still sleep for now.” When he was finished, he could tell he’d spoken too fast, especially to a person who’d been sleeping three seconds ago.

Backlebutt blinked, not saying anything for several seconds. Finally, he came out with, “I have to (piss).”

“What?”

The man stirred, slowly climbing to his feet. He tested the leg, wincing, before limping his way right up to the edge of the cave, his back to Milo. Leaning one shoulder against the wall to brace himself, he started fiddling with the front of his trousers.

Ah, piss, Milo had time to think just before the man started spraying down on the zombodiles. He couldn’t actually see anything, but he still turned awkwardly to face the back of the cave while the man did his business.

“So you’re leaving.” Backlebutt said without turning around. He was still peeing out over the water.

“Yes. But I’ll be back. Once I kill the enemies in the way and find a safe place, we can move you to the new place. But right now, if things go wrong...you can barely move. I can escape from danger on my own. You can’t. We don’t know what’s ahead.”

The sound of Backlebutt's stream trailed off, and Milo turned to look at the man again. Though finished, he still stood staring out into the cavern.

“So I’m to be (coddled) like a (child).”

Milo wasn’t sure what Backlebutt had said, but by his tone the man obviously wasn’t pleased with the situation.

“Do you have a better idea?”

Backlebutt sighed before finally turning around.

“What you say...it makes sense. I don’t like it, but you are right. I have (trained), prepared for this. I know that taking unnecessary risk just to (salve) my (pride) would be a poor decision. As much as I (hate) it, I would only be a (burden) right now. With this,” he said, gesturing at his leg with a grimace, “I can’t finish the Descent. I will need to leave and recover before returning...but I cannot return to the entrance by which I entered. I will surely be caught and killed shortly after my exit.”

“Is there another way out? And I thought you couldn’t leave the Descent without defeating it. ‘The only way out is through,’ it said.”

Backlebutt shook his head. “After completing each level, you are given a choice. You may receive (rewards) and continue, or you may exit.”

“...what are (rewards)?”